Consumers are becoming increasingly savvy in their product purchasing behaviors. They use their smart phones to perform price comparisons. They select, at point of purchase, from several available options. For example, users may select from one of several different car washes available at a gasoline kiosk. And, when shopping for food or other products, consumers frequently ask the seller to try a free sample of the food or other product, such as perfume, being sold or displayed. There exists an opportunity and need to provide consumers with a greater range of options when making their purchasing decisions.
The Coca-Cola Company currently markets and sells non-alcoholic beverages through various outlets and dispensing and vending equipment. One such type of dispensing equipment is known as the Freestyle® dispensing machine, which permits customers to select from over one hundred different product and flavor combinations. Such dispensing machines are often placed in fast food restaurants, convenience stores, malls, and other venues that tend to attract consumers. An example of the apparatus, processes, methods, and systems potentially associated with the Freestyle® dispensing machine is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 8,340,815, to Peters, et al., incorporated in its entirety by reference herein.
Frequently, a consumer attempting to use a Freestyle® vending machine may be uncertain as to which of the over one hundred offerings to choose. This can lead to not only an unhappy consumer who may select an offering that he or she does not enjoy, but also may lead to other unhappy consumers waiting in line for such uncertain consumers to make a flavor selection.
The Coca-Cola Company currently provides a Freestyle® smart phone application that may be directed at addressing this problem by permitting consumers to pre-select on the application their favorite flavor offerings. The application permits consumers to consult a selection of over one hundred choices, mix their own virtual flavors, and start adding favorite brands and mixes to the application user's favorites list. The application provides for push notifications, locates Freestyle® machines in proximity to the application user, and offers a “Mobile App Sweepstakes.”
The Coca-Cola Company, and other entities that sell products, are continuously looking for new ways to market their products and demonstrate their attributes relative to competitive products and to encourage consumers to try both existing and new product offerings. Moreover, given the well-publicized global obesity epidemic, companies that sell calorie containing products are working hard to offer lower calorie options and to demonstrate to the consuming public, as well as governmental agencies, of their efforts in this regard.
Often, sellers of consumer products, in order to increase consumer awareness of their brands, offer—sometimes for a limited time—non-standard product variants or line extensions of such brands; one example, in the context of beverages, is Mountain Dew® “Kickstart,” currently being offered by PepsiCo, Inc., in Black Cherry and Limeade flavors. But often, consumers will be reluctant to commit to purchasing a six or 12-pack of such a line extension, or even to purchase a single serving thereof. For this reason, products—particularly new products or variants of existing products—are often marketed with promotions, including free product sampling at venues attracting numerous consumers, such as sporting events, concerts, etc. Other products, such as health, beauty, and personal care products marketed, for example, by Procter & Gamble, are sometimes sampled in drug stores, supermarkets, etc., or by sending small free samples to potential consumers in the mail.
But such promotions often require hiring numerous promotions staff, and/or employees to hand out free product samples for example, and do not typically provide an option for consumers to purchase the sampled products immediately after sampling, when there exists the greatest opportunity to make a product sale, or to obtain and/or transmit and store post-sampling market research data.
In the context of consumer products, the period of time after which a consumer first notices or is presented with an offered product and makes a purchasing decision is sometimes referred to as “the first moment of truth,” also referred to as “FMOT,” a term generally recognized as having been coined by Procter and Gamble circa 2005. FMOT is generally recognized as the few seconds after a shopper first encounters a product on a store shelf. It is in these precious few seconds, P&G contends, that marketers have the best chance of converting a browser into a buyer by appealing to their senses, values and emotions.
The first moment of truth may vary, of course, by individual, by type of store, and/or type of product. For example, some consumers take longer than others to make a purchasing decision. Some products, such as high-priced items like automobiles, are only purchased after an extended period of time, perhaps an hour or more. As used herein, the term “first moment of truth” is intended to mean a generally recognized period of time, which may comprise a range of time, during which marketers of particular products understand that they have the best opportunity to convert a potential purchaser into a purchaser of such products by appealing to their senses, values, and/or emotions. In the context of consumer products, such as health and personal care, food, beverage, and similar items, particularly those being offered at grocery stores, supermarkets, pharmacies, convenience stores, big box stores, etc., the first moment of truth is typically recognized as being about three to seven seconds.
Recent marketing theory suggests, however, that there may actually be four “moments of truth” in the marketing context, as illustrated by the following:
Zero Moment of Truth or ZMOT: Potential purchaser recognizes the need for a product or service and may seek out additional information for it, for example by going online. This term, coined by Google, may include face-to-face meetings as well as online information acquisition. In a 2011 study, Google reported that different categories of shoppers are influenced by the Zero Moment of Truth or “ZMOT.” For example, 99% of those making travel purchases were found to be influenced by ZMOT, while only 61% of consumers of packaged grocery products and only 63% of consumers of packaged goods in health, beauty, and personal care were so influenced. Such data, in the context of consumer packaged goods, indicates a need to either provide additional opportunities or incentives to influence consumers at the ZMOT, and/or to influence consumers of such products to more quickly get from the ZMOT to the FMOT.
First Moment of Truth or FMOT: The potential purchaser makes a purchasing decision when presented with the product or service, whether online, on shelf, or otherwise. Traditionally, this moment occurred at the store shelf, and may now occur on a “virtual shelf,” i.e., online.
Second Moment of Truth or SMOT: The purchaser has purchased and used the product or service; ideally the experience supports any pre-purchase promises or promotional inducements. This is often the purchaser's first use of the product.
Third Moment of Truth or TMOT: The purchaser becomes a “follower” of the purchased product or service, sharing positive messaging about it with others via word of mouth, social media, etc. The purchaser may also rate the product or service and/or provide reviews therefor. This is often the point at which the brand's message reaches the purchaser in a memorable or reinforcing way, and was traditionally accomplished with television advertising.
One attempt to provide consumers information with respect to one or more of these moments of truth can be found, for example, in U.S. Patent Application No. 2013/0035787 to Canter. This published application provides a 2-D bar code at the vending machine for a consumer to link to an informational page on a website. This disclosure fails, however, to teach control of the vending machine from a smartphone or other communication device, and fails to provide any physical enticement through product sampling to a prospective purchaser of the products being supplied by the vending machine.
There exists a need to provide consumers with product sampling opportunities and product purchasing opportunities that are proximate in time and location to one another and ideally commensurate with the first moment of truth for a particular product. There exists a need to compress the four moments of truth into a shorter time span than occurs with traditional marketing methods of radio, television, and print advertising, and online shopping, and to take full advantage of the market research opportunities of product sampling by positioning the four moments of truth about a common purchasing experience and/or purchasing location. There exists a need to more readily incentivize consumers to sample product offerings and share their experiences, for example, with providers of such products and on social media, promptly following product sampling experiences.